Outside the Balance
by Kuroi-cho-tsuki-shiro
Summary: A single lie and one soul slips between the cracks. Byakuya has sworn he will find Hisana's sister, but if she is no longer counted among the souls of his world, where can he look? Byakuya x Hisana 55
1. Chapter 1

_**Author's Note: Thank you for so many reviews on the last story: Kaze, for always reviewing, you star! Icyangel, Splitheart, Isle of Solitude - I'm so happy you like the couple and thanks for listing the squees; I might print that review! Guest 1 - It is a long series, but you're coming in towards the end, as it started with Rukia, but has now moved on to Hisana; Pen-aine, Chelly, who's still here *happy dance*, Guest 2 - sorry the chapters are short; Ashes2ashes - it doesn't end with Hisana, but will return return briefly to Rukia; WriteFF13 - sorry for fluffiness; they deserve a little fluff, though, right? Shadow Pain for enjoying the proposal; Goran and Byakkun. THANK YOU!**_

They were married on the last day of winter, beneath the plum blossoms. Hisana would remember the thin cast of sunlight and the crowd of dignitaries, the assembled captains and vice-captains of the _Gotei _Thirteen. She had known that Byakuya, as a _shinigami _would be married as a _shinigami. _Unohana had been right. It was not a vocation, but the deepest and most abiding part of his being, and the others were not their as colleagues or kin, but rather as witnesses to a change that rippled out amongst them. In men like Ukitake, whose faces were smooth and ageless, she saw eyes that had watched centuries pass. They had endured by luck, skill, obstinacy or a mixture of all three, but always subject to the same immutable and incomprehensible laws.

She would never be a part of that, but she sensed, in their curiosity, the possibility that she was as much a threat to them as they to her. An aberration had stepped into their world and they wanted to know how she would change it.

Her strongest memory, though, would be of Byakuya, dressed in white and gold. He could have worn his uniform. Amongst the _Gotei, _an officer's apparel was considered the finest mark of their status, but he had forgone the white _haori _and the _zanpakuto _on his hip in favour of robes of the finest silk. There were gold chains in his hair that matched the gold threads in her own, though these were hidden beneath the hood of her dress. She was entirely contained within the swathes of fabric that formed the bridal gown, the hood blinkering her field of vision, so that, throughout the ceremony, she could see only him and the uncertainty in his eyes, as if he expected her to run from him, even now.

As the ceremony ended, he kissed her lightly. The speeches were read. Her hand crawled into his as she listened with only half an ear to the praises his men bestowed upon him. They knew only a part of him; the rest, he kept back for her. She might never understand every part of him, but this was enough, she thought. Right now, his fingers folded into her own, were enough.

In the evening, they feasted and, when it was over and she felt sated and dizzy with wine, full of the noise and laughter, and tired in a way that made the day complete, Byakuya and his grandfather, led her to a dusty room at the back of the house where Ginrei took a seat at a writing desk. Byakuya retrieved a leather-bound book from a cabinet. It kicked up dust as he set it down on the desk, and his grandfather coughed irritably, opened it and leafed through page upon page of spidery diagrams: lines connecting name after name, dating back centuries. He found the final page and cleared his throat:

"Kuchiki Hisana," he said. She blinked at her new name, and watched as, with a simple stroke of a brush, he linked it to Byakuya's. Then he drew a second line that arced out from her own: "What is your sister's name, Child?"

"Rukia," she said softly and he looked up:

"Is that Japanese?"

"It's from the Latin. It means 'light.'"

"Unusual name," he commented.

"You don't have to" – she began, but Byakuya stopped her:

"Our families are one now. They can't be separated. The records must be complete."

His grandfather wrote the name in katakana, closed the book and looked up:

"Let none be forgotten."


	2. Chapter 2

Five months were to pass before they received any news from Rukongai. Five months of waiting, but they were five months in which she was almost completely content. Byakuya spent his days at the barracks or on commission, sometimes going away for weeks at a time, but he always returned and the man who fought and killed on a battlefield in another world was not the same man who spent his evenings teaching her calligraphy or reading to her as she fell asleep. The latter was wholly her own and, knowing that, she had no need to resent the duties that took him from her. She awaited news of her sister and, in the meantime, set about furnishing the empty house, painting the rooms in the pastel shades that he tended to favour in the silk gowns he bought her.

"You don't have to do that," he had told her one evening when he'd found her with her sleeves rolled up and tucked into her _obi, _the front of her night-dress covered in paint.

"Someone should," she'd told him, grinning, but when he'd offered to hire painters, she had it might seem unlady-like to him, it filled her time, and he came to tolerate her need to be busy.

In the main room, at the back of their appartments, with a few strokes, she painted branches and cherry blossoms and grey birds flying.

She was finishing the mural one evening when Byakuya arrived home, a little later than usual. Turning, she knew at once that something was wrong.

He blinked at the latest addition to the painting: two silvery cranes flying side by side into a white sky. Yet he said nothing. His face was pale. He held papers in his hands.

"What is it?" she asked as he handed them to her:

"I'm sorry. She died eighty-five years ago."

Hisana's stomach lurched. There was no need for her to look at the documents. She could do the maths and, with one hand on her chest, she sunk to her knees:

"After I left her."

"It's not your fault."

"She died because I left her." She let the papers fall to her side and put her head in her hands. She felt, rather than saw Byakuya pass her and pick them up:

"At least you know now," he said: "I'm sorry."

"Does it say how she died?"

"Of a sickness," he said. Hisana looked up:

"What does that mean?"

"It means she died of a sickness." When she didn't react, he handed her the document. There was her sister's name, the date of her earthly birth and death and the cause and circumstances of that death. Hisana shuddered, her eyes unfocussed with memories. She had never told Byakuya how she had died; he had never asked. He knew of her parents, the rice paddies and her recollections of Tokyo, but not of her death or the brief and distant war that had preceded it. Knowing he had read this, it made her suddenly ashamed that she had never told him.

Her sister, Rukia, had been registered in the Seventy-ninth district of Rukongai. She had died there, some two months later, of disease.

"I think this is wrong. I left her in Seventy-eighth."

"Are you sure?"

"Of course I'm sure! We went through the checkpoint. The only time she was ever quiet was when we went past the checkpoints. Oh." Another memory. She felt the ehat rise in her cheeks, as she remembered how she had made the decision to cross into Seventy-eighth. It had been a way to break ties; a way to ensure the girl's fate would never be traced back to her. She had been devious, even back then: "Byakuya-_sama, _this is what I told them!"

"What?" he took the papers back.

"This is what I told the _shinigami _on the checkpoint when we crossed! I told them she was dead!"

"Why?" He stared at her: "Why would you do that?"

"Because no-one would look for her. Because no-one would bring her back to Seventy-ninth, to me! Oh, Byakuya-_sama, _I was hateful back then!"

"You told them she was dead, and then what?"

"They said it would be checked in the next census." She held his gaze as the pieces fell into place: "But, by then, she was in Seventy-eighth, so, of course, no-one of her name would be registered in Seventy-ninth. And I'd said she was dead, so they'd have had no reason to look any further!"

"So this is wrong?" he said, holding up the paper.

"Yes! But we've been looking in the wrong place, Byakuya! We need to look in Seventy-eighth!" She stood up, her heart beating faster. Not dead. Not yet. There was still a chance.

It took a little time for the sound of Byakuya's silence to reach her, and then she turned to face him.

"Hisana," he said gently: "I asked them to check the records from every district, not just Seventy-ninth. This is the only documentation we have on her in the whole of Soul Society."

She stiffened:

"You mean, she is dead?"

"No, I mean, she isn't registered, anywhere. She's not accounted for. Not in this world; not in the world of the living."

"No, that can't be right, Byakuya-_sama; _there would have been someone with her name in Seventy-eighth. If only for a day. If only for a few hours."

"Her name? If she died before the census and no-one registered it, we'd have no way of knowing. If she lived – no, even then she could be registered under a different name, assuming she was registered at all. And there's no reason she would be because our official records say she's dead!"

She stepped back at the tone of his voice:

"Are you angry with me?"

"Why did you lie?" he demanded: "Why do you always have to lie? You realise we have no way of tracing her. No way of finding her. Because you lied!" He balled up the paper in one hand and would have thrown it into the hearth when Hisana intercepted him with a cry:

"No! No, please!" she begged, prying his fingers back from the crumpled notes. She smoothed them out with trembling fingers: "This is all I have."

"Eighty-five years," he said, turning away as if she had ceased to exist for him. He was frowning: "She could have been reborn in the world of the living and we wouldn't know. Damn you, Hisana. Do you never think of the effect your actions might have beyond yourself?"

"What does it matter?" she demanded: "This is about my sister; not your records!"

"She's not accounted for in the cycle of souls anymore. _Ryoka. _Outside of the balance."

"What does that even mean? You don't know! Why is that more real to you than her and I? I was looking for my sister, Byakuya-_sama! _My sister!"

"The records are meant to be complete."

"They don't matter. She matters!"

"I will take this back to my superiors."

"Stop it!" she cried, crossing to where he was standing: "Stop it, please. Don't make it about that."

"It is the law, Hisana."

"I have no interest in the law!"

"And that is precisely why you have lost her." She stared at him. On the outside, he seemed calm, but she had never seen him like this. He knew how to hurt her and he went about it with swift, clean cuts: "Had you obeyed the law, we would have her with us by now. We would have an answer. Because you disregarded it, she is gone. Do you understand?" She nodded: "We are finished for tonight."

As he strode out of the room, she said, in a small voice:

"You disregarded it when you married me, Byakuya-_sama."_

His eyes were cold as he turned back to her:

"I will not do so again."


	3. Chapter 3

She didn't go to him that night. She stayed up by the hearth, reading and rereading her sister's documents as if they could offer her some clue to her fate. She fell asleep with her cheek resting on them, curled up beneath the half-finished mural of cherry blossoms and soaring cranes.

She woke in pitch darkness to the smell of fresh paint, her body cold and stiff. When she sat up, her breath caught in her chest, as it did often on winter mornings and she coughed and gasped, then pulled her gown around her and tip-toed to the bedroom.

She could hear him breathing in the darkness. She slipped under the covers where it was, at least, warm, and lay there, very still. The weight of her body had barely disturbed the bed. Sometimes she felt so small that it would not matter if she disappeared out of the picture. Her non-existence might leave barely a ripple in his world.

Then his arm slid around her waist. She let him hold her, but made no effort to return his touch. His breathing was deep and sleepy.

"I'm going to Rukongai tomorrow," she said softly.

She felt him stiffen and waited for him to refuse her, but he never spoke and she found herself wondering if he had heard her at all. "She used to scream all night. Once I got used to the idea, I think I just accepted that I was dead like everybody else, but it seemed to me she never did. She still wanted to eat and sleep and live. I hated her for that. For the screaming, but also because she kept on fighting, long after I gave up.

"That's how I know she's not been reborn. Her hunger; that was _reiatsu, _wasn't it? You see, I didn't know at the time. I thought she was stupid. Stubborn. But she wasn't. She was just different from the rest of us. She used to go quiet every time we passed the _shinigami. _They were the only ones who had anything like the _reiatsu _she did."

He shifted beside her:

"Why didn't you tell me this?"

"I didn't know for sure. I didn't know if I was imagining things, but it all makes sense, doesn't it?" He unlaced his arm from about her waist and lit a lamp at the side of the bed. She could see him, reflected in the glass cabinet across from them, sitting up, gazing down at her small body on the bed:

"Are you sure that she had more spiritual pressure than you?"

"Far more."

"Then she might still be little more than a child; a teenager, at most."

"But you can't use _reiatsu _to find her, can you?"

"No, it doesn't work like that, but if what you're saying is true then there is every chance that she will come to the _Shino."_

"What?"

"Most souls with high spiritual pressure eventually find their way to the academy. With the exception of those who choose to use their powers for criminal purposes, most wish to be trained."

There was silence between them as the implications of his words sunk in. And then she said:

"As a _shinigami?" _She turned over: "But she's not like you. She wasn't born in this world, so how could she" - ?

"Powerful souls are sometimes born into Rukongai. When the time comes, they seek others like themselves."

"So being born with high _reiatsu _condemns you to this life?"

He stared down at her, his eyes silver in the light of the single flame. Then he blinked:

"She would have a choice, but you should know by now: she will choose this life of her own free will."

"Why?"

"Because the alternative is returning to a world she can never be a part of." He pushed her hair out of her eyes and kissed her on the forehead: "You know that." The lamp behind him guttered and he sighed in the sudden darkness.

"Byakuya-_sama," _she said, as he settled again at her side.

"Hm?"

"She could come here. Here, to this house." She waited. He said nothing and she went on, her voice small in the darkness: "She wouldn't have to join the _Shino. _She could take a room here, like me. And we could keep her. It wouldn't be any trouble really, would it?"

"What is it that frightens you, Hisana?" he asked, his words carrying a trace of sadness.

"The risks you take."

"But it isn't that."

"She might change if she went to the _Shino. _She might forget who she is. She might lose something" – She hesitated. Her breathing sounded loud in the silent room. She had come as close as she dared to expressing her fears.

"Lose what?" he asked. And, timidly, she answered:

"The part of her that would make her human."

He said nothing. After a short while though his hand found hers in the darkness and held it tightly.


	4. Chapter 4

**To everyone who has faved and watched this story. THANK YOU!**

**The next part of this story is called WHAT FALLS BETWEEN US and it will appear in a separate installment, which I will upload now. If you can't find it, look on my profile page. THE LINKS TO ALL THE STORIES ARE THERE!**

**THANKS TO Shadewolf7, Truantpony, ForbiddenME, Pinky357, Immortal Vows, Chellythemadhatter, Insomniatic95, Sallythedestroyerofworlds23, UNTensaZangetsu, XDark FangsX, Superlynx, Ichigoforeverlove, Ennaalemap, Makaykay15, Kaze05, Splash into Forever, War90, Yellowwomanonthebrink, Bakane, Night Flower, Hallmarktrinity, Tiffany Park, Snowcrystals, Neristhaed, Splitheart1120, VanillaTwilight4, Nightfur, Happykiller93, Haildance, Ani-mimi, Mysticalphoenix-avalon, Jennyrdr, Goranr, Firebirdever, Isleofsolitude, Itachipanda, Pamila de Castro, Lemgem, Nightingale Heartz, Ashes2ashes121, Icyangel27, Westhardobbs, Devdhftf, Computer-Rukia-Addicted, Thayet9, EcalSol019, WriteFF13, Sky1011, Xwannaflyx, MidnightVampire18, Pen-aine, ShadowPain and Tazski.**


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